David Zach, futurist

The Difference between Socialism and Fascism?

I'm wondering if the difference between socialism and fascism is that with fascism a few people take control because they say that most people cannot be trusted. Under socialism, a few people take control because they tell most people that they alone can be trusted. It's all about trust apparently.

This from GK Chesterton: Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. (Click the link for an explanation of this line from Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society) 

This, argues Chesterton (in Orthodoxy) is "the democratic faith: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves - the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state."

My fear is that a lot of people no longer have "democratic faith" in themselves, so they put it outside of themselves and into the hands of either experts or into tyrants. They are often difficult to tell apart. 

Digital Contact Lenses: Upgrade your Friends

Here's more proof of what I've been saying to my audiences, that eventually you can have contact lenses with some sort of digital screen built into them. Of course this is all being promoted with the best of intentions, to have improved eyesight or have instant access to loads of information, but let's be honest, won't there also be concerted efforts to have this be used to um, enhance one's viewing pleasure?

That shouldn't slow down the development, but perhaps it might help speed up the consideration of the cultural and social implications. We will not be able to install any sorts of restrictions on this technology, but it might be a good opportunity to instill some restraints in ourselves on how we will use such technologies.

Wound scanner

Not quite as exciting as the DIY Health monitor and not for the faint of heart but here's a handheld medical device to scan wounds - using the technology employed to create Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies. Here's a video of the device in action. Here's the source article found at Medgadget.

DIY pervasive health monitor

So this only makes sense. One more step forward to the day when you will self-monitor your health, except it's more than looking at your tongue in the mirror or taking your pulse by holding two fingers against your wrist or throat.

This is a device made by a design student to monitor your vital signs and feed it to you visually on your mobile device. Found here on Endgadget. This is similar to the cPod that's used on the International Space Station that allows earth-bound docs to monitor the vitals of the astronauts. Can there be any real doubt that such devices will emerge on the market and into palms, pockets, lockets and wrists of health conscious consumers everywhere - or at least into the affluent areas.

At the bottom of this article is the Youtube video explaining the device.

So can this be a bad thing? Sure, just as a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. With the right instructions (who pays attention to those?) and within the right boundaries, this will be a tremendous thing, but it will change our relationship to ourselves and the things around us.

Imagine having immediate feedback about the donut you just ate. Or are there immediate effects from second-hand smoke or pollution? No longer will the TV ads have to ask, "Are you healthy enough for . . ." well, you know - you'll know because the device will tell you that you are and may even send a IM to your partner (as the ads so PCly call them). The dividing line between people who will want to know and those who will smash the device right after it told them not to do what they're going to do anyway.

Is it unreasonable for insurance companies to someday insist you wear such a device? And, if you don't what if they raise your rates or deny you coverage? What if the redlining was automated? Will such information remain private and could you sell the information from such a device to any variety of organizations that might want to know how your body reacts to various things. Could a skateboard company be able to monitor various things such as pulse and then advertise that this board will raise your pulse more than those other lame boards the competition makes?

This from Reuters that researchers from Oxford have said we could save thousands of lives each year by adding a fat tax to unhealthy foods such as cheese.

Hmmm. Let me see, what else is unhealthy (subjectively measured, of course) that if we taxed it, we'd have less of it and thereby live longer . . . and of course I can't mention many of those unhealthy vices because oddly enough, some vices are politically correct and others are not. As one who has followed the politically correct notion, it also changes over time. Still, the motivation to tax unpopular behaviors has few limits in some imaginations, especially if it doesn't affect them personally. Once passed, taxes are also easier to impose than fines. G. K. Chesterton said that, A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter..

Imagine a future in which all bad behaviors were outlawed, fined or taxed. And after you do that, imagine what sort of people will be the ones who get to decide what is bad and what is good. What will they base their decisions upon?

Of course, none of this is new. Juvenal, the Roman satirist from the 1st & 2nd century asked, Who guards the guardians? It's an eternal human question also expressed by Milton Friedman, The power to do good is also the power to do harm. If we are not to be trusted with cheese, it would seem that the same sort of solid reasoning would lead us to believe that we should not be trusted with the vote.

Now I understand the Wisconsin bumper sticker, Eat cheese or die!

Update 7/17/07: On the ABC website they explain the electronic monitoring bling that our little angel Lindsay Lohan is wearing. It monitors sweat and ultimately alcohol consumption.

Well, well, well. If it can measure alcohol, why not other things? Chips, cheese, chocolate ice cream, even pot? Why not combine the tax system with the monitoring system and then the readings can automatically add your unpopular behavior to the tax rolls? Just think of the possibility of making sure, via the tax system that everyone finally has above average lifestyle behaviors.

Big brother will be automated.

My father was a radiologist. I suspect that he would have adapted to the newer Internet-based Radiology but I also bet that he would have decried the outsourcing of Radiology that the net would allow.

A search on yahoo.com for radiology+outsourcing+India reveal 89,200 hits.

My sense is that healthcare has very little to do with healthcare these days. Efficiency at all costs is not a very good formula for success.

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
P. J. O'Rourke

A innovation that would allow those without physical mobility to "walk" around a virtual environment.

New Scientist article on the subject.

Fat tax?

This from Reuters that researchers from Oxford have said we could save thousands of lives each year by adding a fat tax to unhealthy foods such as cheese.

Hmmm. Let me see, what else is unhealthy (subjectively measured, of course) that if we taxed it, we'd have less of it and thereby live longer . . . and of course I can't mention many of those unhealthy vices because oddly enough, some vices are politically correct and others are not. As one who has followed the politically correct notion, it also changes over time. Still, the motivation to tax unpopular behaviors has few limits in some imaginations, especially if it doesn't affect them personally. Once passed, taxes are also easier to impose than fines. G. K. Chesterton said that, A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter..

Imagine a future in which all bad behaviors were outlawed, fined or taxed. And after you do that, imagine what sort of people will be the ones who get to decide what is bad and what is good. What will they base their decisions upon?

Of course, none of this is new. Juvenal, the Roman satirist from the 1st & 2nd century asked, Who guards the guardians? It's an eternal human question also expressed by Milton Friedman, The power to do good is also the power to do harm. If we are not to be trusted with cheese, it would seem that the same sort of solid reasoning would lead us to believe that we should not be trusted with the vote.

Now I understand the Wisconsin bumper sticker, Eat cheese or die!

Update 7/17/07: On the ABC website they explain the electronic monitoring bling that our little angel Lindsay Lohan is wearing. It monitors sweat and ultimately alcohol consumption.

Well, well, well. If it can measure alcohol, why not other things? Chips, cheese, chocolate ice cream, even pot? Why not combine the tax system with the monitoring system and then the readings can automatically add your unpopular behavior to the tax rolls? Just think of the possibility of making sure, via the tax system that everyone finally has above average lifestyle behaviors.

Big brother will be automated.

X-ray vision: Teleradiology

My father was a radiologist. I suspect that he would have adapted to the newer Internet-based Radiology but I also bet that he would have decried the outsourcing of Radiology that the net would allow.

A search on yahoo.com for radiology+outsourcing+India reveal 89,200 hits.

My sense is that healthcare has very little to do with healthcare these days. Efficiency at all costs is not a very good formula for success.

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
P. J. O'Rourke

Virtual worlds for the disabled

A innovation that would allow those without physical mobility to "walk" around a virtual environment.

New Scientist article on the subject.